


Already There

by capsule



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Future Fic, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29734365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capsule/pseuds/capsule
Summary: Chenle goes on hiatus. He flies back to Shanghai, to spend time with his family. Kun stays in Seoul and continues to work.
Relationships: Qian Kun/Zhong Chen Le
Kudos: 24





	Already There

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of timeline, this fic starts around January 2021 and is an AU from there.
> 
> I've detailed the timeline a bit more + added some other notes in a post [here](https://haremaria.tumblr.com/post/644276140148686849/kl-notes).

“I don’t know whether I’ll come back.”

It wasn’t the sort of thing Chenle was supposed to say. He should have been offering reassurances—it won’t be that long, you’ll barely miss me, don’t be dramatic. He shouldn’t be putting to words the deepest fear of his fans, their management—everyone who wanted him to stay.

Kun didn’t know if he was joking. Sometimes with Chenle it was hard to tell.

“Why?” Kun said. “You don’t want to?”

Chenle shrugged. With the way he was stretched out on the sofa, head bent kind of awkwardly to look at Daegal perched on top of his stomach, Kun couldn’t get a good read of his expression. Chenle ran his fingers through Daegal’s unruly curls, making her look even wilder than she already did. She was definitely overdue for grooming.

“I don’t know,” Chenle said, still fixated on Daegal. “Maybe I’ll decide I like being home too much. Maybe I’ll find something I like doing better.”

“Like what?”

“Who knows. You can’t plan for these sorts of things.”

It was frustratingly flippant of him. Kun felt a sharp pang of irritation surge through his chest, threatening to push him to say something he shouldn’t.

He took a deep breath and recentred himself. He was good at that.

“You shouldn’t joke about these sorts of things,” he said.

Chenle turned his head to face Kun. His eyes were dark, and tinged with something that made Kun feel desperately sad.

“Who said I was joking?”

Kun thought stepping off the plane should have felt more surreal. It was kind of disappointing how normal it all felt. How quickly he slipped into a sense of routine. The details were different—new protocols, slower movement, no threat of being crushed by swarming fans—but the essentials were unchanged. The airport didn’t look all that different just because it was emptier.

Really, there was little time for much reflection. They were escorted through the gates and into a van to head straight for their hotel as soon as they passed through security. Their bags were to be delivered separately. It was late, everyone was tired. No one was allowed to go out, so it wasn’t as though they got to see the city.

Ten didn’t often room with Kun but he claimed him early, before any other room assignments could be finalised. Kun didn’t mind. He liked Ten, most of the time. Ten was easy to be around.

“It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?” Ten said, stretched out across his bed. They were still waiting for their luggage to arrive, so they couldn’t sleep just yet. Kun was desperate to wash his face.

“I guess,” Kun said. “I don’t know—is it? I don’t think it’s hit me yet.”

Ten rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “I wish we could go out. I just wanna… walk around. See everything, you know? And eat—I want to eat something good. I can’t stop thinking about all the food I miss.”

A pang of longing shot through Kun at Ten’s words. He always did what he could to make the food that he liked, but there were dishes that remained painfully out of his grasp. Even with the foods he felt confident preparing, sometimes the details were just a little bit off. Some things tasted better made by someone else’s hands.

“Do you think they’ll let us have some time to ourselves before we go?” Ten asked, turning to face Kun.

“I don’t know.” Kun shrugged. “I think we’re just going to work and then leave. I don’t think they’ve left time for anything else.”

Ten sighed and returned to lying flat on his back. Kun mirrored him, reclining back, swinging his legs up over the covers. He didn’t like to think too much about everything—what they were doing, what they were missing out on. At some point his sense of rationality and responsibility couldn’t hold up any longer.

Nothing felt fair.

Chenle had told everyone before he left his hiatus would last for six months. Seven months had passed already, and he still wasn’t back. Kun hadn’t spoken to him since April.

In a rare display of compassion, SM gave them all a week off to visit family. The decision came like so many of the decisions that mattered most—abruptly, and with short notice, giving everyone little time to react or prepare. Arrangements were made in haste. No one dared to complain. The opportunity was too good to waste.

Compassion might not have been the right word to describe the company’s motivations. Appeasement, maybe. Dissatisfaction was rarely spoken of openly, and threats were only ever silent and implied, but it wasn’t as though the possibility of someone reaching their limit wasn’t always there, hovering nearby. Their entire existence as a group sometimes felt so precarious; it only took one card moving out of place for them all to fall.

Whatever the reason for it, Kun didn’t want to care. He just wanted to go home to his family, to his mother’s cooking and the familiar nagging he’d once disdained. At home, he was a son, not a leader.

On his first night back, Kun lay in his childhood bed in the dark and felt tears roll down his cheeks when he closed his eyes.

On his second night back, he slept soundly.

On his third night, Chenle texted him.

_Why haven’t you called me?_

Kun didn’t reply.

Two days before that first trip to Beijing, Renjun stopped by the dorm to get his instructions from Ten. Kun had decided to put Bella in a kennel, but Ten thought the cats would be better off staying where they were. “This is their home,” he said. “They’ll prefer to be here.” Fortunately for Ten, Renjun was happy to help. He still had enough pet envy to volunteer.

“You excited?” Renjun said, sitting cross-legged on the floor and playing with Leon while Kun watched from a distance.

“I don’t know,” Kun said. “We’ll just be working, mostly. It doesn’t exactly feel like a real trip.”

He thought it must be hard for Renjun to see them off, wondering when it would be that he would get the same chance. There was nothing Kun could say to make it any better. He knew that. He still wished he could.

Ten returned from the bathroom and scooped Leon up in his arms. He kissed Leon’s head, holding him tight. Kun wondered who was going to suffer more from the separation: Ten or the cats?

“Come on,” Ten said. “I’ll show you my room. I’ve got a lot of stuff in there.”

Before Renjun left that day, he stopped in front of Kun, sitting on the couch, and said, “If you see Chenle, can you tell him something for me?”

Kun frowned. “Why would I see him? He’s in Shanghai, isn’t he?”

Renjun just looked at him with an impenetrable gaze. There was something kind of intimidating about Renjun at times.

Without addressing Kun’s question, he said, “Well if you see him, or speak to him, whatever, can you tell him we miss him? No one cares how long he’s been gone. There’s still a place for him in Dream.”

Kun swallowed and thought about how to respond.

“Do you… still talk to Chenle?”

“We have our group chat,” Renjun said. “He keeps us updated on how he’s going. But I don’t think he really listens when we tell him we want him back. I think he needs to hear it in person.” Renjun paused for a second before adding, “From someone he trusts.”

He left without forcing Kun to promise anything. That wasn’t his way. He had faith in Kun, assumed he would do what needed to be done.

His faith was misguided. Kun wasn’t going to see Chenle regardless of whether he wanted to.

At some point during the trips back and forth from Seoul to Beijing, when there were talks of permanent relocation and no one knew for sure what was happening, Chenle started texting him regularly.

Chenle only ever texted Kun when he was in Beijing, from the first day until the last. The messages were never anything too exciting, just a _hey_ or a gif, sometimes a photograph. He sent Kun a picture of his nephew, smiling at the camera and looking impossibly bigger than the last time Kun saw him.

In October, Kun picked up his phone and dialled Chenle’s number.

“I wan’t sure if you were ever going to call,” Chenle said when he picked up the phone. “Took you long enough.”

“You could have called me,” Kun countered.

“I was trying to give you space.”

It was a statement begging for a follow-up. Kun hadn’t called Chenle to have that conversation. “Everyone misses you,” he said. “When are you coming back?”

“You’re mad at me,” Chenle said.

“You’ve been gone nine months! Of course I’m annoyed, Chenle. People are worried about you and it feels like you don’t care.”

“You were mad at me before that.”

Kun fell silent. Chenle wasn’t completely wrong.

“Did you find something else?” Kun asked. “Something you like better?”

“No,” Chenle replied. “I still want to come back.”

“Then why won’t you?”

“I will. When I’m ready.”

“You don’t seem all that sad,” Chenle said to Kun during that last night they spent together at his apartment in Seoul.

It was late at that point. Kun probably should have gone home an hour ago. The bottle of wine they’d been sharing was sitting empty on the coffee table. Kun’s glass only had about two sips left.

“Do you want me to cry?”

“I don’t want you to do anything. But I thought you’d be sadder.”

Chenle’s mouth was stained purple from the wine. The colour was deeper in the cracks on his bottom lip, marking out all of the dry spots. He looked about as tired as Kun felt, as though they were pushing themselves to hold out as long as possible instead of calling it a night. For what reason they were doing this, Kun couldn’t say.

Kun faced Chenle and looked more than he should, but he was half-drunk and exhausted and he’d run out of intelligent things to say. It was easier just to look at Chenle. Kun traced over every inch of his face. They sat separated by the coffee table and the light was poor, but Kun still made out a perfect image of Chenle’s features, every line and imperfection, even if only because he supplemented what he could see with what he knew from memory.

He was sad Chenle was leaving. He knew that on an intellectual level anyway. Emotionally, things were more complex. Sadness was buried somewhere deep below everything else that had been battling for priority since the moment he’d heard Chenle was taking a break to spend time with family.

Kun was a flawed person. He knew the bitter taste of envy too well.

“I’m tired,” Kun said, and it was true, and it was an excuse.

Kun was in Beijing when he found out Chenle had returned to Seoul.

The news was delivered via an article Ten forwarded to him. The article was short: just a report of when Chenle landed followed by some speculation of whether he would rejoin NCT Dream. SM’s provided statement was typically vague. Kun couldn’t read a lot into it.

 _Did you know?_ Ten asked him.

The last time Kun spoke to Chenle was on his birthday, not too long ago. They talked about what Chenle was doing to celebrate, and Chenle asked Kun what he’d been up to lately. Without really thinking about it, Kun slipped into sharing his frustrations, and Chenle, as he always did, listened and teased and gave Kun reassurance. It was nice. It felt normal. They avoided the topic of Chenle’s return.

Attached to the article was a picture of Chenle outside the front of the airport terminal, closely followed by a manager Kun recognised. Chenle’s face was mostly covered by his cap and mask, and the quality of the photograph wasn’t very good. Kun couldn’t make out much.

He messaged Ten. _Have you heard anything?_

_Not yet. Do you want me to ask Mark?_

Kun thought about it. They were due to stay in Beijing for another three days. After that, they were definitely returning to Seoul. Flights had been booked.

 _Don’t worry about it_.

Two months before Chenle left, Kun went over to his apartment for dinner. They argued that night about who was going to cook. Chenle genuinely liked cooking, and he liked his own food more than almost anything else. Kun often allowed him to do what he wanted, but that night was different.

“It’s your birthday,” he said. “I’m going to cook for you.”

“It’s not like it’s today.”

“Close enough.”

In the end, Kun had to compromise. Chenle’s stubborness was overwhelming. They both cooked—Kun prepared the fish he’d brought, Chenle pulled together an assortment of ingredients from his pantry and fridge to turn into sides. Chenle’s kitchen was spacious enough for them both to do what they needed without getting in each other’s way.

“Have you even bought me a present yet?” Chenle asked while mincing fresh cloves of garlic.

Kun frowned. “You haven’t told me what you want. I’m not going to get something you’re just going to return.”

“Well I don’t know, I don’t know what I want. Just get me Daegal’s food.”

“I’m not getting you Daegal’s food!”

“Why not? That’s the only thing I want.”

Kun put down his knife and turned to face Chenle. “It’s a present. It should be meaningful. Stuff from your grocery list doesn’t count.”

Chenle spared him a sidelong and said nothing. He continued his chopping.

They couldn’t drink too much if they wanted to survive getting up early for filming the next day. Just a glass of wine each, at Chenle’s insistence. “It helps me sleep,” he said, when Kun questioned whether they needed it. Kun didn’t like the the sound of that, but he put aside the urge to nag for another day.

Chenle convinced Kun to stay and watch a movie with him after dinner. It wasn’t really hard for Kun to agree. Dinner was good; his stomach was full. Lazing around on the couch for a while seemed like a good idea. He could probably ask his manager to pick him up later.

Chenle picked the movie without much consideration and settled back onto the couch next to Kun. He pressed play, the movie ran. Chenle started off the movie sitting upright with his legs folded under him, and ten minutes later ended up sliding across to lean against Kun, snuggling into him. He must have been tired, Kun thought. He was always more affectionate when he was tired.

“What if this is what I want as my present?” Chenle said, halfway through the movie.

Kun didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

“This. Making dinner, drinking wine, watching movies. Just the two of us doing this, but more often. It’s nice.” Chenle readjusted his position, and shifted closer into Kun. “Sometimes I think about what it would be like to have a normal job. Taking the subway with everyone in the mornings, coming home at the same time every day. Living together with someone. Cooking together, and sharing chores, and sleeping in the same bed.”

Kun looked down at the top of Chenle’s head. “Sounds like you just want a girlfriend.”

“That’s not what I meant. I like this better anyway.”

Chenle was pressed up so close along the length of Kun’s side, curled against his arm, and his head dangerously close to the centre of Kun’s chest. It seemed impossible that he could miss feeling the way Kun reacted. Kun couldn’t stop the involuntary clench of his muscles. He couldn’t make his heart beat any quieter.

Chenle didn’t say anything further for a little while. The scenes on the TV played out in front of them, little more than vague colours and shapes to Kun at this point. He was thinking about Chenle, and what he said.

“You said a present has to be meaningful,” Chenle said. “This is meaningful to me.”

Kun’s plane landed in Seoul around 3pm. At 5:47pm, Chenle texted him.

_You’re back, right? Come over._

_I missed you._

Kun was in his room at the dorm, taking his sweet time to get everything unpacked and sorted to be washed. Their manager was out buying groceries for dinner. Organising transport to Chenle’s place last minute was always kind of a pain—even worse during rush hour.

Kun texted back.

_I’ll see you soon._


End file.
